


how i met your mulder

by skuls



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, no unhappiness here, the fluffiest stuff i've ever written, this is to make up for "miles away"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 08:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10827747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: A universe where Scully can safely tell her kids the story of how she met their father.





	1. how i met your mulder

**Author's Note:**

> this is a thing i wrote, like, a year ago, inspired by my tumblr url (@how-i-met-your-mulder... it's a dumb pun but a cool concept). it is inspired by the concept of how i met your mother, but i did NOT take the himym path on the mother/mulder situation. that was cruel of the himym people. it is very unlike himym outside of its ultimate cheesiness, and unapologetically fluffy. also, there are two follow-up ficlets.

For the majority of her life, Scully has never been a storyteller. Mulder’s always filled that role better than she ever could. (He’s superb at bedtime stories.) So why is she telling this one?

“Dad told me you were a spy,” William informs her.

Oh, yeah. Because she can’t trust Mulder with information.

“I was not a _spy_ ,” she protests, shifting uncomfortably. “I was a, a-”

“Spy!” Mulder calls from the next room.

“I was his partner.”

“Oh, is that what they call it,” Emily deadpans, raising an eyebrow. 

“His _FBI partner_ ,” she stresses. “I was assigned to provide scientific analysis and case reports on your father’s cases.

“Oh, yeah, cause you guys were, like, Ghostbusters,” William says energetically. He’s always been interested in what few details he could pry out of them about their previous jobs. He thinks that just being a coroner is boring. Emily thought it was cool for about a year, when she was doing dissections in science. Mulder despairs at the idea that their kids think they aren’t cool, but Scully doesn’t mind. Not really, anyway.

“Not exactly, William,” she says with a small smile. “Ghosts-”

“If the next words out of your mouth are ‘aren’t real’, Scully, I’m divorcing  you,” Mulder calls again.

“Go walk the dogs, Mulder!” Scully calls back. “I’m telling a story!”

“Get to the good part, Mom,” Emily says. “What happened when you first met?”

“Um, he insinuated that I _was_ , in fact, a spy, recited off my credentials, and asked me if I believed in aliens.”

“And you said no,” William says grumpily, kicking the couch leg 

“Don’t kick the furniture,” Scully says automatically. “And yes, I said no. Logically, of course.”

* * *

By the time Scully has finished with the story of their first case, she is thoroughly hungry. She exits Mulder’s study to find him sitting at the kitchen table. He smiles at her. “So, did you tell them about the time you stripped for me?”

Scully coughs. “Mulder!” she hisses under her breath. “I did not strip for you! You needed to look at the, you know-”

“Mosquito bites?” The sides of Mulder’s mouth quirk up.

“I _thought_ they were your alien bumps,” she grumbles.

“Oh, sure, Scully. Then why did you practically throw yourself at me after?”

“Ooh, Mom,” Emily teases from the doorway to the study. 

Scully glares at Mulder fiercely. “This conversation is over,” she announces.

“Hurry up, Mom!” William calls. “You’ve got to finish the story?”

_You mean there’s more to tell?_ she thinks in a panic; she was really never meant to be the storyteller. Mulder always told her that her case reports were too long and draggy. “You failed to capture the climax properly,” he’d say, shaking the papers in her face.

“Yeah, you never got to the romantic part!” Emily says. “You never told us how you and Dad fell in love.”

“I think you should be grounded from watching any more romantic movies,” she sighs, grabbing the potato chips from the cabinet.

“Well, if this story is going to be told, it should at least be told right,” Mulder announces, standing from his chair.

“Oh, no. If this story is going to be told, they can at least hear a coherent version!” 

“Just make sure that you tell them everything, Scully,” he whines. 

“I’ll tell them the truth, Mulder,” she shoots back, and is rewarded by a brief look of amusement. 

* * *

“-and that was when your father burst in with a gun.”

William’s eyes are wide. “Wow!” he says. “Really?”

Scully nods. “We handcuffed him to the bathtub,” she says, although she is being somewhat generous - she handcuffed him to the bathtub, although Mulder provided said cuffs.

Emily looks unconvinced. “Okay, but you kissed him, right?”

“No.”

“I wish,” Mulder calls from the dining room.

“Come on, Mom, he rescued you!”

“Emily, I’ve told you that just because someone does something for you, you don’t need to repay them, right?”

“Yeah, but, Mom.” Her daughter smirks fully. “Come on.”

“Kissing is gross,” William comments. “I wanna hear more about the mutant.”

“Oh, yeah?” Emily retorts. “Is a mutant any grosser than a guy who eats livers?”

“That depends on which parent you take after!” Mulder calls again.

* * *

Scully tries to skip around to get the story moving, but William or Mulder or both will berate her if she misses a case. Emily is unconvinced that they didn’t get together sooner. “Okay, but you at least liked him, right?”

“We were partners,” she says. “He was my best friend.”

“Okay, but the whole iced tea shit? Clear flirting!”

“Don’t say shit.”

“Mulder, did you like Mom during that first year?”

“Of course!”

“He’s lying,” Scully says, although she smiles at the sentiment. 

“Why does everyone here care so much about romance?” William complains. “Mom, was Skinner really mean back then?”

“Mr. Skinner, William, and no, he was just doing his job,” she tries to explain. “I mean, would you believe it if the people who worked for you said that they had caught a guy who ate livers?”

“Yes,” William confirms.

“Depends on how good they made their story,” Emily counters.

“The truth is out there,” Mulder says. He sounds very close by.

“Mulder, are you listening at the door?”

“Trust no one, Scully. I took a page out of Tooms’ book, and climbed in the air vent.”

* * *

“Wait, you _shot_ Dad?” William says incredously.

Emily snickers. “Hey, Mom, is that the romantic advice you offered me once? Cause I tried a Nerf gun and it didn’t work.”

“Oh, but real bullets are so much more romantic!” Mulder says in the voice he uses sometimes late at night, when Scully won’t come away from the computer.

“Let’s not talk about this,” Scully says. “I actualy feel bad.”

“Aww, you do?” Mulder says.

“I can’t believe you shot Dad!” William says.

“It’s okay, buddy. I forgave her long ago.”

“But stiiiilll,” he says, drawing out the word.

“It’s okay, Will. Mom doesn’t shoot people any more, she just cuts them up,” Emily says comfortingly, although it’s the most bizarre form of comfort Scully’s ever seen.

“You shot him in that Nerf battle last week,” William says accusingly.

“Honey, that was just a game.”

“You told us that guns were very dangerous and not a game!”

“They’re not,” Scully says. “Nerf guns are for fun, but real guns are dangerous and I only shot your dad because I absolutely had to.”

“Hmmph,” Mulder says.

* * *

  
“An alligator almost ate Queequeg?” William’s eyes are wide with horror.

“Almost,” Scully says. “But then Mulder showed up with a tree branch and threw it at him.”

“Worst decision I ever made,” Mulder calls - from the laundry room, it sounds like. The walls are too thin in this house. They need to get them checked out.

Queequeg huffs plaintively from the corner. He’s getting up there in years, but is still going strong. 

“Hey!” William shouts indignantly. He loves the dogs even more than Scully does, and carts Queequeg around the house despite his age and weakening enthusiasm. He’d probably play with Daggoo more, if the dog wasn’t so attached to Scully.

“Sorry, Will. I meant because it discredited my Big Blue theory.”

Scully rolls her eyes. “Oh, wait, did I tell you about the time I was interviewed by _Jose Chung_ for a book about a case?” She grabs the book from Mulder’s bookshelf, and shows it to the kids.

“I’ve read that,” Emily says. “That’s about _you guys_?” She sounds fairly horrified.

“Scully, wait!” Mulder’s feet pound the creaky floor of the hallway. “You can’t show them that! It’s innaccurate!”

“Lock the door!” Scully says. Emily laughs wildly as she runs over and turns the lock. Over Mulder’s protests, she continues. “So, this story is about alien costumes, Alex Trebek, and sweet potato pie…”

* * *

“Mulder, why’d you wait so long to ask Mom out?”

“I didn’t-” he hedges through the thick chestnut wood of the study door.

“Yeah, that’s weird,” William says. “I mean, you liked each other, right?”

Scully smirks and stares at the door, waiting for an answer.

“Of course I liked her. It was just… never the right time.”

“Four years!” Emily says. “ _Fox_. Boy, did your parents misname you.”

“Emily!” Scully scolds, although she’s laughing as she scolds.

“You now, I thought the first name jokes were off limits in this family,” Mulder says sternly, although she knows he is joking right back.

“Sorry,” Emily says, giggling.

“Besides, your mom didn’t like me.”

“Yes, I did!” Scully protests. “It was just…” She looks into the twin blue eyes of her children, and falters. 

“Just what?” William prompts, ever an investigator like his dad.

“…never… the right time,” she finishes lamely.

Emily rolls her eyes again and flops back on the couch. “ _God_ , you two were insufferable.”

* * *

“And then we took a case in Dallas-”

“NO!” Mulder shouts, pounding the door with the heel of his hand. “Scully, I am _not_ letting you tell this story!”

Emily and William are intrigued, watching them with great interest.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Scully says innocently.

“Scully,” he pleads. “Come on! There was a clear conflict of interest here! I mean, you’ll leave out the buck teeth!”

“Ooh, I wanna hear Dad’s story!” William says, bouncing.

“But mine has Dad singing in it.”

“Mom’s story!” he decides.

“Mine has your mom complaining about cream cheese!”

“Light cream cheese?” Emily asks.

“Dad’s!” William says.

“Hey, now, I have the upper hand here. You asked me to tell the story,” Scully reminds them. (She has to admit, this is way more fun then she expected.)

“Scully,” Mulder pleads. She smirks. She’s been waiting for her revenge ever since she had to do two autopsies on an empty stomach.

“So there were these six dead cows…”

* * *

“A bee…. stung you,” Emily says, dumbfounded.

Scully nods. “Why do you think I refuse to have flowers on this property?” Mulder says from the other side. 

“I wanna kill a bee!” William says with his child rage. “They’re stupid!”

“What happened to kissing being gross?” Scully teases.

“Yeah, but I want you and Dad to be happy, and you like gross stuff.”

“Aww,” says Scully, touched.

“I am hurt,” says Mulder dramatically. “Wounded.”

* * *

“Mom, you _idiot_!” Emily explodes.

“He was on drugs,” she falters. “I mean…”

“Did you tell me about that? I would’ve told you he meant it. He told me.”

“Wait - he _told_ you?”

“He said, _I have a little crush on your mommy. Don’t tell anyone._ Sorry, Mulder.”

“You really traveled through time, Dad?” William says, running over and kneeling by the crack under the door. _(Back to the Future_ is his favorite movie.)

A hazel eye appears in the crack. “Uh huh. Your mom doesn’t believe me, though.” 

“She never does.”

“Hey, Mom, you remember when Mulder used to take me monster hunting in the basement of our apartment building when he moved in?” Emily says.

Scully smiles fondly. “I always swore you would get nightmares, but you were always my brave girl.”

Emily ducks her head, embarrassed by the affectionate comment (she’s at that age). “Yeah, or it was good preparation for the horror movie fanatic Mulder would eventually turn me into.”

“Hey!” William says. “What if _I_ travel through time, and make it so you and Mom never met, then I make it so you do but you’re happier and you kiss Mom on that case with Liver Guy?”

“That’d be greatly appreciate, buddy,” Mulder says. “I’ll get started on that time machine.”

* * *

There’s still plenty of stories to tell, and Scully’s riding the high she didn’t know she could experience from telling them, but Emily and William have since grown bored. William, lying face down on the floor, groans, “Come on, Mom, it feels like you’ve been talking for _nine years_.”

“Come on! This is a good one! It’s the story of how I got Daggoo!” she protests.

“We’ve heard this one about a million times from Mulder. It’s his Proof of the Paranormal story.”

“Oh. Well, you haven’t-”

“Mom, the story got boring after you and Dad got together.”

“No, it didn’t,” she and Mulder say at the same time.

Emily walks to the door and throws it open. “Go, stop her! I need a nap.”

Mulder gets off of the floor, and walks over to her. “I wouldn’t do that.” He wraps his arms around her. “You did good.”

William groans at the sight of the affection. Scully ignores him. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Mulder kisses her hair. “And you know what this means.” He smirks. “My turn.”


	2. mother's day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here’s my attempt at giving scully a happy (if not crazy and hectic) mother’s day. also this is the corniest thing i’ve ever written.

William is making a card on printer paper stolen from Mulder’s office. It seems to have gone from “simple Mother’s Day card” to “elaborate comic, featuring astronauts, Bigfoot, and the dogs”. There’s crayon smeared on the table. Emily grabs the Clorox wipes from under the sink. “So, I was thinking for Mom’s present, I could tell her that I’ve chosen to do my required summer internship with her at the morgue,” she says, spreading her hands in a _ta-da_ motion. “What do you think?”

William shades the fur on the large creature that is debatably Sasquatch or Chewbacca. “I think that you can do better.”

“Better?”

“Yeah. That’s boring!”

“Oh, and a comic isn’t boring?”

“No, it’s funny. She’ll laugh at it. She can pin it to the wall and laugh at it while she cuts people up. It’ll make her boring job _less_ boring.”

Emily could point out that it’s probably vastly inappropriate for the corner to be laughing in a morgue, where people come to identify dead bodies, but she senses that the sentiment would be lost on a seven-year-old. “But I gave Mulder a copy of that giant project I did on myths, and how they fit into our culture. Remember?”

“That was boring, too.”

Emily rolls her eyes. It’s true that William finds most things boring these days (school, homework, long car rides, shopping trips), but still, an internship at the morgue doesn’t seem like the greatest gift. It’s kind of impersonal, whereas the project she gave Mulder was very personal. She’s always been interested in that stuff. Sometimes, she wonders if her mother is disappointed that they idolize Mulder and his adventures so much, instead of idolizing her medical career, her talent with a scalpel. She’s always been proud of her mom in a detached way; science has never interested her. So, what do they have in common that she could exploit tomorrow morning over inevitable brunch with the grandparents? She taps her sneaker against the floor in thought.

Their mother enters the room, and William practically lunges across the table, shoving the piece of paper under the table and knocking crayons to the floor with a sweep of his arm. Emily swipes the table with the Clorox to get rid of the colorful wax smears, giggling at her brother.

She stares at the two of them for a solid minute, before blinking and saying, “Will, please pick up the crayons.” He goes down on the floor, not-so-subtly shoving the paper down his sweater. Emily balls up the wipe and tosses it at the trash can in the corner.

“So I’m running out to do some shopping-” their mother begins.

“I’ll come!” Emily says, inspired by the fact that she will most likely be able to find something that appeals to her mother. Surely.

She looks surprised. “I was going to let you stay home, but all right, if you really want to. We can pick up your dad at the office, maybe go for some dinner after.”

“Sounds good.”

“William, get your shoes on, please.” She counters his pout with, “You know you’re too young to stay home alone.”

He crawls out from under the table, paper crinkling as he moves, and sticks his tongue out at Emily, a universal sibling code.

* * *

Mulder’s phone rings as he is locking the door to the office. He answers without looking, recognizing the ring tone that Emily set to be hers (the theme to _Pet Sematary_ , which is never fun to hear in the middle of the night when your daughter wants to be picked up and you accidentally fell asleep on the couch). “‘Lo,” he says distractedly.

“Mulder, I need your expertise.”

“The last time someone said that to me, it was some crackpot YouTube conspiracy theorist.”

“Ha ha,” Emily says. “No, tomorrow’s Mother’s Day, and I was informed by William that my gift for Mom is lame, so I snuck off at Wal-Mart to find her something.”

“Wait, your mom took you two to Wal-Mart?” he says incredulously. Grocery shopping with Scully is a dangerous affair. She refuses to let anyone else help her with it. As soon as Emily and William were old enough to stay home alone, she finally gave in to their repeated begs, saying confidentially to him that she’d have an easier time of it.

“Yes, and I’m pretty sure they both want to kill me. Anyway, I can’t think of anything that works.”

“She says we need a new toaster oven. I could help you pay.” Mulder leans against the door, and tries to remember if Emily ever got ahold of his credit card number.

“Mulder, a toaster oven is not sentimental. Mother’s Day is all about sentiment.” She lowers her voice conspiratorially. “I need to find something that will make Mom cry.”

“A challenge, eh?” Mulder grins. “Well, I hate to tell you this, but Wal-Mart is not the place to go for sentiment.”

“Ooh, what if I found something funny? Like an inside joke?”

“Do you two have any inside jokes?”

“Uh, that I think her job is boring. Oh, wait, she helped me dissect a pig that one time! Here’s something!”

“What is it?”

“A clock with a giant pig on it. Do you think she’d get it?”

“You’d have to explain it.”

Emily groans.

Mulder shifts his laptop case up on his shoulder and heads for the door. “Listen, we’re supposed to meet for dinner anyway, so why don’t I meet you all at Wal-Mart, and I can covertly help you look for something?”

“Sounds good, thanks.” The sound of a cuckoo clock filters through the speaker.

“Please don’t buy your mother a cuckoo clock.”

“Oh, trust me, I won’t,” Emily says seriously. “Bye.” She hangs up

Having reached his car, Mulder tosses his case in the backseat, and calls Scully. She picks up sounding grouchy. “Everything okay?” he asks mildly.

“William has complained no less than seven times in the last minute about how bored he is.”

Mulder stifles a laugh; their son has dramatic tendencies.

“No, wait, now he’s playing with the ketchup and mustard bottles. He tells me they’re X Wings.”

“That’s my boy,” he says. “Listen, I’m headed on over there, okay? We can grab some dinner, and I’ll entertain the offspring.”

“Because you excel at that,” Scully replies with the wariness he has come to recognize as affection.

“Hey, no, I’m serious. I’ll even take the kids in my car to give you a break.”

“Sounds- wait, no, Will, that’s a shelf-” There’s a crashing sound on the other end.

“Scully? You ok?”

She comes back on, sounding as tired as one sounds when your son crashes into a shelf at the grocery store. “Tiny crisis. I’ll call you back, Mulder.”

* * *

By the time he gets to Wal-Mart, Scully is loading her car with groceries, and William has something yellow matted in his head. Emily is slumped against the car, looking disappointed. “Hey, guys,” Mulder says somewhat sheepishly - Scully does not look particularly friendly at the moment.

“I blew up the Death Star,” William informs him.

“Yes, but where Han Solo was rewarded, you’re in trouble,” Scully says.

“Dad, you’re Chewbacca.”

“Okay, buddy.” Mulder scoops him up and puts a hand on Scully’s shoulder.

“The manager was very nice,” she says. “I really just need some-” Her phone rings and she sighs. “Just a minute.” She flips the phone open, answering it, “Scully.”

Mulder takes the opportunity to go talk to Emily. “Hey, you get anything?”

“This was all I could grab before Mom got us out of there.” She dangles a Def Lepard CD between two fingers. “But then I realized Mon hates Def Lepard, so… Happy Father’s Day.” She hands Mulder the CD.

“We could go in and look,” he offers.

“Nah, Mom’s gonna rush us out of here fast.”

Mulder casts his eyes over towards the back of the car. Scully’s heels click frantically as she paces. “I was under the impression that this was my day off,” she says loudly, icily, into the phone.

“I think Mom needs the Force,” William whispers into Mulder’s ear.

“Okay,” Scully says. “No, it’s fine. I understand. I’ll be right there.” She hangs up the cellphone and tosses it in her purse, slamming the trunk shut with a heavy sigh.

“What’s up, Scully?” Mulder asks.

“Emergency autopsy,” she says with a sigh. “Serial killer. They say they’re on a tight timeline and I need to do it right away.” She smiles ruefully. “Remind you of anything, Mulder?”

“Are you okay, Mom?” Emily offers.

“Yeah, just tired, and - Mulder, where did you get that CD?”

William snickers into Mulder’s shoulder. “Oh, uh, impulse buy,” he says.

Scully seems to have forgotten the ordeal. “You all should go on to dinner,” she says. “It’s late, everyone is starving…”

Mulder feels a rush of sympathy for his wife, looking very tired, with a little of bit of ketchup in her hair. “No, sweetie, we’ll come and hang out at the morgue.”

“Sweetie?” Emily echoes, amused.

“Gross!” William choruses. “You never call Mom that!”

Scully looks a little perturbed herself. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, we can drop off the car and ride over there together, keep you company while you work, and then we can all go to dinner.”

William startles, obviously upset by this. “But, Dad-” he protests.

“William, in this family, if one of us suffers, we all suffer.”

Unsatisfied by this, William wriggles down, muttering something about why does the whole family have to be boring.

Scully still looks a little confused, although her eyes have softened considerably. “That’s very sweet, Mulder. I’ll try to do it quickly.”

* * *

The morgue is a drab, stainless steel gray. William lies on the floor, looking grumpy, and playing with a pair of tweezers and a set of goggles that he lifted. Emily debates gift options out loud.

“You could get Mom body parts,” William says.

“Mom’s around body parts all day, buddy,” Mulder says with a laugh. “I don’t think she’s gonna want some as a present.”

“And also,” Emily says. “You know, I’m pretty that’s illegal.”

“Former FBI privilege gets you out of a lot, young Emily.”

She wrinkles her nose.

“Hey, what was your original gift, anyway?” he asks, remembering. “The one that William thought was lame.”

“It _was_ lame, okay?” William asserts.

“I was gonna tell her that I signed up to do my summer internship here, at the morgue.”

“Emily, that’s great! She’ll love that!” Mulder feels some sense of pride at his daughter, who is still the sweet little kid who used to cling to Scully’s pant leg and tell her she was really pretty and smart.

“Yeah, I’m still gonna do it, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I still want to think of something else.”

“You’ll do great here, Em,” Mulder says. “Look - the lab coats might actually fit you.”

Emily smirks. The coats in the morgue are infamously huge, and almost swallow Scully alive. She stands and grabs one, shrugging it on. The sleeves are too big and flop over her fingertips, but it overall fits her better. (Emily greatly enjoys the fact that she is taller than Scully.)

Mulder grins. “You remember when we’d go monster hunting in the basement when you were little, and I called you Agent Scully Jr?”

“Yeah, I - Mulder, are you taking a picture?”

He snaps a quick one, and checks to make sure it isn’t blurry. “Well, I think now I’m going to have to start calling you Dr. Scully Jr.”

“Oh, God,” she groans. “This isn’t gonna be like when we went to Boston and you posted a picture on Facebook of everywhere we went, is it?”

He submits the photo to Facebook, and gives her his best innocent look, to which she rolls her eyes at. (Her resemblance to Scully is almost eerie at this point, what with the hair and eyes and the lab coat and the eyeroll.) “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Dad, what’re you giving Mom for Mother’s Day?” William asks.

Mulder freezes immediately. “Shit,” he mutters. He’s gotten Scully presents for Mother’s Day since Emily.

“Ooh,” William says, entertained.

Emily is amused. “Don’t tell me we’re in the same boat.”

“How could I remember to get something for Maggie, but not your mom?” Mulder says, head spinning with panic.

“Impromptu shopping trip?” Emily asks.

“Impromptu shopping trip,” he confirms.

William is stricken with panic, and crawls towards the silver table against the wall, sliding all the way under it.

“C’mon, Will. You don’t want to stay here with the… dead bodies, do you?” Emily says, waggling her fingers at him in what is probably supposed to be a creepy gesture, but looks more like the type of greeting kids give each other at school.

“Emily, don’t give your brother nightmares,” Mulder says. (William slept in their bed for a month after watching the last half of _Blair Witch Project._ ) “Will, buddy, ya gotta pick the lesser of two evils here.”

At that moment, Scully comes out of the back room, and stares at the three of them. “What- Emily, is that my jacket?”

“Sorry, Mom,” she says, passing it over.

“Uh, Scully,” Mulder starts, racking his brain for a suitable excuse. “We’re gonna go and-”

“Wait, you’re going to dinner?” Scully’s eyes widen with hurt.

Mulder starts to correct her, but realizes that he has no other excuse. “Uh, yeah,” he says sheepishly. “Sorry, Scully, but the kids are famished. We’ll swing by and pick you up after. We’ll get you a doggie bag.”

“Then what was all that about…” Scully sighs, and shakes her head. “Okay, guys. Have fun. See you later.” She turns and goes back into the room, door slamming behind her.

William sticks his head out from under the table, hair sticking up wildly. “Mom’s mad, I think.”

“Yeah,” Mulder sighs. “Whatever we get her better be good, or we’re going to ruin her evening.”

* * *

Almost as soon as they get in the car, William pipes up from the backseat. “Dad, I’m…”

“Bored,” Mulder finishes for him. “I know, buddy. Here, I’ll make you a deal. If you can be cool for a little while longer, you can play on my phone.”

William lights up immediately. “Deal!” He grabs the phone from Mulder’s outstretched hand, and seconds later, loud beeping sounds start coming from the phone’s tiny speakers.

Emily drums her fingers on the dashboard. “So, what’s our game plan here?”

“Uh, I’m not sure,” he says. _Think, think. Think Scully. Think cool, collected skeptic._ “What about another dog?” he offers lamely.

“Dad, Daggoo already dotes on Mom more than you do-”

“Thanks for that. Thanks a bunch. I’ll have you know-”

“And besides that, Queequeg freaked out enough when Mom brought Daggoo home. How do you think she’d react to another one?”

“I think it’s a great idea,” William says, thumbs moving wildly. “I think we should adopt all the puppies in the world.”

“What about, like, a heart model or something?” Emily offers with a slight grimace, like she knows the idea is bad before she even finishes.

“Or a phone,” Mulder offers. “Her phone is crappy.”

“Mom’s phone is crappy,” William offers. “Yours is much better, Dad. Better games and stuff.”

“Sentimentality, Mulder,” Emily says, tapping the side of her head. “It can be the difference between a great present and a shi - I mean _crappy_ present. Don’t you want to make Mom cry?”

“Why would you wanna make Mom cry?” William sounds half-horrified, half-in a video game coma.

“Of happiness, Will,” she replies. “Of _happiness_.”

“I should just forget the sentimental aspect of it all and get her that toaster oven we need,” Mulder says, defeated.

Emily giggles. “You could always make it sentimental by… I dunno, engraving it with one of your corny nicknames or something.”

“Corny nicknames?”

She shrugs. “Touchstone, one in five billion…”

“Hey, those were very sentimental, and that… that actually isn’t a bad idea.”

Emily is taken aback. “What?”

“I’m going to buy your mother a toaster oven and engrave it.” Mulder turns towards Wal-Mart, feeling self satisfied.

“Boring,” William sings out from the backseat.

“Watch it, kid.” Mulder grins a little expectantly at Emily. “Hey, it’s unique enough that she would remember it.”

“Mulder,” Emily says, quite serious. “I have the slightest feeling that Mom’s gonna remember this Mother’s Day no matter what.”

* * *

They stop by Wal-Mart at what must be a record speed, and head straight for the engraving shop. After what must be a ten minute straight argument about whether or not engraving a toaster oven fits in with their regulations, Mulder finally wins, and heads off to find a bathroom. The engraver totes their new toaster oven off, with a strange look on his face. Emily and William wait in the two chairs provided for waiting. William pulls out his drawing, and gives it a mournful look. “It wrinkled,” he says.

“It still looks good. Mom’ll like it anyway,” Emily reassures him.

William nods, and shoves the paper back in his pocket, which will only wrinkle it more, but Emily doesn’t bother breaking the news to him. “So, what’re you gonna do?” he asks. “Give her the toaster oven with Dad?”

“Dear God, no, I’m not going to take credit for that.” She shrugs, finally feeling defeated. “I guess I’ll just stick with my original internship idea. I’ll make it up to her at Christmas.”

“Why is the internship thing important?” William asks her, pulling his knees up to his chest. “Why’d you decide to go work with Mom?”

“I thought she’d like it,” Emily says honestly. “I feel like we don’t give Mom enough credit for what she does. I’ve always been more interested in hearing Mulder’s stories about her old job. And, you know, Mom’s really smart and really good at what she does, and her work helps people. And I guess I just wanted to show her that I noticed.”

William considers this, tipping his head to the side as if in deep thought. Finally, he says, “That’s sweet.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She’ll like that. She’ll think it’s nice.”

Emily feels some strange combination of happiness and annoyance. “You couldn’t have told me that a few hours ago?”

“It wasn’t sweet then, it was cheap!” William waves his hands wildly.

“Cheap? You wanna talk about cheap, drawing a picture is even cheaper because you’re using things that Mom and Dad bought. So it’s like you’re giving Mom back money she lent you, and acting like it’s a gift.”

“What… I… shut up!”

“Diplomacy, kids,” Mulder says as he reenters the room. “Let’s just make an agreement that Emily’s not going to listen to Will’s commentaries on her gift-giving skills anymore, okay?”

“Hey!” the boy protests.

“Deal,” Emily says, slumping back in her chair. Her phone buzzes and she pulls it out to check it.

The man approaches Mulder with the toaster oven, holding the back out towards him so he can examine the engraving. “This good, sir?”

“Great,” Mulder says. “My wife will think I’m crazy, but I’m 80% sure she already thinks that.”

“Only 80%?” William says. He still has Mulder’s phone, and seems to be involved in a death match of Pac-Man.

Mulder looks for any sign of sympathy in the man, but he seems to be annoyed at the fact that he had to engrave a toaster oven, and amused by the fact that the man who asked him to engrave said toaster oven in the first place has children who are apparently card-carrying members of the Mulder Is Crazy club. “What do I owe you?” he says finally.

“Dad, I’d get going,” Emily says, holding up her phone. “That was a text from Mom, and you can imagine how great her mood is.”

* * *

Scully is going to kill her entire family. Her entire, hypocritical family. When the car pulls into the driveway, and the three of them get out, looking sheepish, she matches it with a glare that Mulder will later tell her he hasn’t seen since the case in Chaney - which, incidentally, is the last time she remembers being this hungry after an autopsy.

“Sorry, Mom,” Emily offers. Well, she always was the most diplomatic.

“Do you have my leftovers?” she demands.

“Uh, about that,” Mulder says. “We didn’t actually go eat…”

_So what the hell have they been doing for the last hour and a half?_ Scully scowls fiercer, and contemplates how her day could’ve slid so far downhill.

William approaches her almost timidly. “We’re sorry, Mom,” he says sweetly. “It was all Dad’s idea, anyway.”

“Hey!”

He grabs her hand and tugs on it. “C’mon, let’s go get dinner.”

“You should choose,” Emily adds. “It’s almost Mother’s Day.”

Mulder offers a smile that has won her over a thousand times. “Sweetie?” he offers.

Scully sighs. She needs to work on her resistance to these three and their big eyes. “Don’t call me sweetie,” she says, walking with William to the car.

* * *

“I can’t believe it was closed,” Emily says. “Do we have bad luck or what, Mom?”

Somehow, instead of going to some nice restaurant where she could’ve at least gotten a decent meal, Scully is sitting in the back bench seat of the car with her children, and two greasy McDonald’s drive through bags on the floor of the car, next to a toaster oven. (She seriously doubts that Mulder ran out on the whole morgue thing just to buy a toaster oven, but it looks that way at the moment.)

Mulder parked them in the lot outside an old, closed down seafood place. They had come here for Emily’s fifth birthday, she remembers. It was good. Emily didn’t get her growth spurt until eleven, so she had jumped up and down to try and see the fish in the tank while they waited. Mulder had scooped her up and pointed out the different kinds to her while Scully had watched with a smile. She thinks she would have wanted to come here if it wasn’t closed.

“See, now the car isn’t such a bad place to eat,” Mulder tells them. “It’ll be dark in a little while, and we can look for UFOs.”

“Mulder…” Scully says warningly.

“I mean _constellations_ , Scully. Plenty educational, and hey, aren’t you doing that stuff in science next year, Emily?”

William clambers up in her lap. She smiles and rests her cheek against his hair, breathing in his shampoo and the mustard still in his hair - okay, he’s going to need a bath at home. “Hey, Mommy?” he says, a word he only ever uses when he’s sleepy anymore. “Can I give you my present?”

“Sure, baby,” she says, smoothing wayward strands. He reaches into his pocket, and hands her a rumpled sheet of paper. She smooths it before examining it precariously, and laughing. “This is great, Will! I love it.”

“Hey, can I see?” Mulder asks, and she hands the comic over before kissing William’s forehead. “This is awesome, buddy.”

“I thought you could put it in your office,” he says to her, rubbing his eyes, “and it’d make you laugh at work.” He’s exhausted; she gives it about ten minutes before he’s out like a light.

“That’d be great,” Scully says. “Thank you, William.” He nods sleepily and leans against her shoulder.

“I’ll go ahead and give you mine, if you want,” Emily says. “Or, well, I should say tell you, cause it’s not really… tangible.”

“Okay,” Scully says, smiling at her daughter.

“Okay, so you know how we’re required to do an internship over the summer?” Scully nods. “Well, uh, I signed up to come work at the morgue. With, um, with you.”

“That’s great, Em!” She pulls her daughter into a hug, crushing a sleepy William between them. “I’d love to have you come work with me.”

“I thought you might,” Emily says, smiling. “I’ve been looking forward to it.”

Scully pulls away to look her in the eye. “I can’t wait,” she says, smoothing Emily’s hair. “Wait - is that why you were trying on my jacket?”

“Let’s go with yes,” Emily says, and Scully laughs at that. She shifts a practically comatose William on her lap, and props her feet up on the new toaster. Mulder is watching them with a small smile from the driver’s seat. She thinks for a minute that it might have been worth it not to go to a restaurant. She wants this moment to be theirs alone, imprinted on the glass of the car windows.

“So, Mulder,” she says conversationally. “Toaster oven, huh?”

“Oh! Yeah. Take a look at it, Scully,” he says, waggling his eyebrows. Scully can’t move with William on her lap, so Emily picks it up and tilts it towards the street light leaking in through the windows. _FBI’s Most Unwanted_ is engraved in large letters on the back, with _(and the offspring)_ engraved in smaller letters, like an afterthought.

She laughs. “Whose idea was that?”

“Em’s.”

“I was _kidding_!” Emily says haughtily, holding her hands up.

Scully laughs again, rubbing the length of William’s back. She’s spent so much time in cars with Mulder that it somehow feels natural. And although she never envisioned being with him in a juice-stained-carpeted minivan with two kids, McDonald’s bags, and a toaster, somehow she is very glad it turned out this way.

“I was going to put to sweetie, but the kids stopped me,” Mulder adds.

Scully leans her head back sleepily. “Shut up, sweetie.”

“Sweetie?” Mulder repeats incredulously, like he didn’t expect her to use the term of endearment. Emily snickers to herself.

“Shut _up_ ,” she repeats, closing her eyes. “I’m going to sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My excuse for a mother’s day fic largely without Scully in it is that it was still about her. Also, I remember watching Friends commentary on S6-7 end, and someone said something about how Monica was largely clueless to the stuff going on in the episodes, so that’s kind of how I think of this, as one giant resemblance of this family’s love for Scully.


	3. five ways fox mulder was addressed by his children

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this was inspired by the deleted william scene from s10. also the “mudler” in pt 1 is dedicated to @haikyuucentric and @american-p-s-y-c-h-o, who don;t give a shit about txf, but still believe that “mudler” is mulder’s name.

* * *

**1.**

There’s a small girl on the couch, almost engulfed by the Pomeranian in her lap, fingers tangled in his orange fur. Scully pulls him through the door, muttering something about her being shy. He replies with something about how he can go, but Scully tugs him straight to the couch without argument. “Emily,” she says. “This is my… friend, Fox Mulder.” Friend, he supposes, is the best term for what they are.

The little girl stares at him with wide Scully eyes. “Hi,” Mulder says. “Is that your dog?”

Emily shakes her head. “It’s Dana’s dog,” she says in a soft three-year-old voice. “He has a funny name.”

“Oh, yeah,” Mulder says. “It's… Quiznos or something, isn’t it?”

Emily giggles, burying her nose in the dog’s fur. Scully grins at him and squeezes his hand before settling beside Emily on the couch. “Dana, could I color?” the girl asks.

“Sure, sweetie.” Scully starts to get up.

Mulder’s already halfway across the room, saying, “I’ll get it,” as he grabs a pad of white paper and a box of crayons.

“Thanks, Mulder. What do you say, sweetie?”

“Thank you, Mudler,” Emily says sweetly, the mispronounced word sounding nice in her small voice.

Scully laughs as she takes the art supplies from his hand. They are a contained mini family, still figuring out their way, there on the couch. Scully pulls him down next to them so he is a part, too.

2.

He still knocks before coming in, although Scully has given him a key and a drawer in her dresser. Emily loves it when he stays the night. She usually asks him to tell her a scary story in favor of Scully’s children-appropriate stories.

She smiles at him over a mile of school paperwork. (Signing up for kindergarten is a complicated and seemingly endless process.) “Hi,” she says, standing and pulling him down for a kiss. It always surprises him when she does this, but motherhood has made Dana Scully laid back in some areas (Mulder fitting into those areas), and uptight in others.

“Hi, Mulder!” Emily says around the straw of her Capri Sun. “You ready?”

Mulder pulls out his flashlight and waves it at her.

“Mulder, if you give her nightmares, you get to stay up with her tonight,” Scully says warningly.

“I won’t get nightmares!” Emily says, jumping down from her seat so that her shoes clang against the tile. She turns and runs into her bedroom, shouting, “Be right back!”

“Mulder, you’ll be careful, won’t you?” Scully says in a tired voice.

“Sure,” he says. “I mean, I’ve got Agent Scully Jr. over there to protect me.”

“That’s me!” Emily shouts from her bedroom.

“I was hinting more along the lines of ‘make sure neither of you steps on the black widow spiders that are potentially down there’.”

Mulder blinks. “Spiders?”

“Ready!” Emily shouts, running into the room with a Mickey Mouse flashlight. He grabs her and swings her upwards, onto his shoulders. She giggles and tugs his hair. “Lead the way, Agent Mulder!”

“Okay, Agent Scully Jr,” he says. “I might need some help steering, though.”

“Who’s Mommy in this game?” Emily whispers loudly in his ear. Scully snorts, pretending to be absorbed in her paperwork.

“I think she’s gonna be Deputy Director Scully,” Mulder whispers back.

Emily snorts. “That’s boring,” she says, tapping his shoulder with the heel of her light-up sneakers. “Onward, Agent Mulder! I wanna find out what those noises from the basement are!”

“Wait,” Scully says, dropping her pen. “Noises from the basement? Are you serious, Em?”

“Yeah,” she says, unaffected. “But I’m not scared. You and Mulder have guns.”

3.

Emily’s hair has darkened to some color closer to red, and she smooths it back with two barrettes before pulling her little brother into her lap. Mulder watches them for a second, finger touching the small ring he’d tucked into his pocket, before grabbing the cookies and closing the pantry door.

“So,” he says casually (as if a seven and one year old will notice) as he sets down the cookies, “what would you guys think about making this a more permanent situation?” He pulls the ring out of his pocket, and shows them.

William just stares at it with the devil-may-care ways of a baby, but Emily squeals, startling the boy. (Mulder waits precariously for tears, but they don’t come.) “You’re gonna ask Mom to marry you?” Emily grabs the ring and examines it.

Mulder is grateful he waited for Scully to be at the store. The offspring don’t know the meaning of the word subtle. He takes William from Emily as he says, “Yeah, well, I mean, I wanted to know how you felt about it.”

Emily looks up from the ring, the blue eyes that seem to run in the family turning up at him. “Does that mean you’d be my dad?”

He freezes. Even after William, after moving in, they’d never discussed his relationship to Emily.  He knew that she knew he was William’s dad, and he knew, definitively, that she would come to wake him up at six on a Saturday, that she usually wanted a story, that she fell asleep on the rug during movies and left him to carry her to bed. He’s never been sure what that meant.

“Daaaa,” William says, drawing out the syllable, patting Mulder on the cheek. At the moment, it doesn’t register with him as more than baby sounds.

Emily gasps. “He said his first word, Mulder!”

Mulder turns to look at his son, the small boy resting on his hip. “Da,” William repeats, grabbing a handful of his hair.

He’s touched. “I never knew my child would be such a cliche,” he says, blinking hard as he hugs William closer.

Emily stares up at him with confusion. “What?”

The door swings open, and Scully enters with three bags in one hand. “Okay, guys, there’s more out in the ca-” She freezes in the doorway, taking in the scene of Mulder standing with William in his arms, still chanting, “Da, da, da” with great entertainment for a young toddler, and Emily still holding a small gold ring in her hands. “What is-” she starts, stops with a falter, and stares at Mulder.

Emily is bouncing excitedly on her toes. She extends the ring towards Mulder, and he reaches without looking and takes it. “Scully,” he begins.

4.

Scully leans back against the armchair, and pulls William into her lap. She’s being trying to distract him with a book about butterflies that his preschool teacher had lent out, but her son has the attention span of Queequeg in his puppy years. He’s been much more interested in the blocks then in the book. “Go see Daddy!” he suddenly declares, climbing out of her lap.

“Wanna go see Fox?” she asks, smoothing her son’s hair.

William giggles at the sound of Mulder’s first name. He’d been pretty insistent when he first found out about it. “Daddy not Fox!” he had insisted. He’d gone over to the shelf of encyclopedias and pulled down the F book, which was too big for his small hands and clattered to the floor. He’d sat down and flipped through the glossy pages, until he’d found the animal he recognized from the animal flashcards Emily did with him. “That fox!” he said proudly, poking the picture. “Mommy fox,” he’d added, pointing at her hair. “Emmy fox. But Daddy _not_ Fox.”

Scully and Emily had found it a lot more funny than Mulder had. He’d sat down across from William and explained about how Fox was his real name. Which wasn’t something that could really be explained to an almost-three-year old.

“Daddy,” William says now, erupting into giggles.

“Fox,” Scully counters, poking him in the stomach.

“ _Daddy_.” William nudges the stack of blocks with his small socked foot. It topples and he grins up at her. “Good job, Mommy?”

“Great job,” she says approvingly, rubbing his small back. “Want me to send Daddy in to say goodnight?”

“Uh huh. Send Daddy.” William tugs at a lock of her hair. “Fox,” he proclaims it.

Scully laughs, kissing the top of her son’s damp head.

5.

There’s a storm, all flashes of lightning and earsplitting thunder. It’d be a good night to watch a horror movie, but the only two horror fanatics in the house aren’t home. Mulder works on paperwork in bed.

The bedroom door swings open with an eerie creak. “Dad?” William asks in a small voice.

Mulder lowers his glasses and pushes the paperwork aside. “Will? You okay?”

William runs up to the be and climbs up beside him. “Storm scared me,” he says, leaning into Mulder’s shoulder.

“You wanna sleep in here?”

“Mm hmm.” William crawls under the comforter, socked feet scraping against Mulder’s legs. “Where’s Mom?”

He wraps an arm around his son. “Late night at the morgue, remember?”

“So, she’s with all the dead people?” Will replies in a small voice.

“Yeah, but these ones won’t come alive.” _I assume,_ he adds silently, but he doesn’t relay this to William.

“Where’s Emily?”

“At a friend’s house. She’ll be okay, too.”

Another clap of thunder sends William sprawling into his lap. “Whoa!” Mulder adjusts him so that his knees aren’t digging into his stomach. “Are _you_ okay?” he adds.

“Uh huh.” William yawns. “You’ll protect me from the dead people, Dad.”

Mulder feels a pang of happiness at this. He stares down at William (who doesn’t take up much room at all, it’s almost ridiculous how small he is at times), curled on his side across his lap. He brushes some hair from his forehead. “Well, think about it, Will, do we really _know_ that the dead would hurt us? I mean, if you consider it…”

“ _Mulder_ ,” he says, in a perfect imitation of Scully.

“Sorry, Scully,” he jokes. “Comma, William.”

William rolls his eyes and pulls the blanket up to his chin. “Night, Dad.”

Mulder turns out the lamp and settles back against the pillow, William’s head tucked under his chin. “Night, Will.”


End file.
